Well, this blogaversary snuck up on me. Kind of like old age and thinning hair, suddenly you may not be rocking them but you own them, like it or not. I have had a blog, been blogging, been a blogger for six years this August. Not as long as some and not as successful as other blogs younger than me. That’s just how it is in the blogosphere, you can see who you’re comparing yourself to and then you have to tell yourself another story.

I can say that at this blog has grown me in ways that I didn’t expect in the least. I became a better writer for the continued regular practice. I became a social media user. Say what? I gained confidence in skills I previously did not have nor ever intended to use. I became a better bigger badder me. And that is always an endeavor worth taking on, even if I didn’t know that’s where I was headed to begin with. It’s been an adventure, a Toad’s wild ride. Read my peppier 5th blogaversary post here (and there are connections to the other anniversary posts there too).

My self-esteem, while having been raised quite extraordinarily by all of the aforementioned benefits of blogging, is still teetering on the questions of value and purpose. It’s fear and humanity all stuck in my throat like a hairball. And I’m hacking up a lung behind the scenes trying to clear this block from my psyche so I can continue to blog with a new and better and bigger purpose.

Because as much as this has served me well to be a better writer and reach out and find pockets of community and esteem, I believe the next way it will serve me will need more focus and more effort and more transparency. And way more work. I will have to take a stand for me and for people like me who need a hand helping themselves out of similar holes. I will have to believe I matter. And that kind of heroism doesn’t come easy.

So thanks to each and every loving one of you for your continued support of my writing and bumbling blogging efforts. I am forever in your debt. You are my crew, my community, and my heart.

Love,

Shalagh

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagramto see my daily pictures, friend meor like my pageon Facebook. Or come find me on Twitteror Pinteresttoo. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

I am fast approaching a milestone here on ye’ olde blog. One thousand posts. Yet I have also kept my foot firmly planted against the door keeping the crack from opening anymore. I have controlled and avoided my success so perfectly that I’m feeling the yawning pains of stagnation here.

How do you avoid success you ask?

Well you never self-promote. You work just as hard but never ask people for anything. Not their eyes to read or their support. You keep everything on the down low QT.

You don’t go outside of your bubble and send your work or thoughts to other people.

You avoid growth and creating anything that could cause more work for yourself soon.

Successful avoidance of success is based solely on the concept that if I did become more successful than that would mean that I may have to pay a high price in effort. I know that presently I can get everything I need done, I can write, and keep up the care of my children. If I started creating more work for myself, then I would be creating my demands when I already feel I have too much.

Of course, success is probably like having your first baby. You think it’ll be tough and it is but you love it. And everything you need just magically appears when you need it. I know all about stalling the children thing and how it is what it is until it isn’t anymore and you won’t die. Well so far it hasn’t killed me.

And lastly, I think I don’t have a good healthy relationship with the word success. I think of it as something you strive for that you ignore other people to get. You work too hard and your children suffer and it’s all about yourself and the needs you have to be acknowledged all the time. I think it’s about greed and money made and attention seeking. About status and ego needs being met. And I’ve convinced myself that I don’t need any of that thank you.

Yet there’s a tiny part of me that says that success isn’t the reward. That there are all sorts of perks and ahas that pave the way and that by the time you get there, you have figured all this out. But you must be in process to discover these eurekas. So, I just want to have some fun and see what happens.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagramto see my daily pictures, friend meor like my pageon Facebook. Or come find me on Twitteror Pinteresttoo. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

When it comes to my body and my soul work, I can maintain what I’ve got for all eternity. It’s movement that I seem to be having a tough time with. I managed to move my body weight down maybe 6 pounds last year with Weight Watchers. And maintained it until Christmas when I gave myself permission to eat what I wanted assuming I’d gain it back. Which I did. I chose it. And now, a year later, I’m back where I started. Maintaining my weight gain despite good intentions and motivation. Not a loser or a gainer but a wicked maintainer.

The same can be said for my progress in my writing. I gained ground when I committed to writing daily and posting three times weekly. Yet when it comes to moving beyond the commitment of writing for my blog and trying to get published, I haven’t been able to allow myself to gain ground. I seem to expect just enough of myself to keep my blog afloat. I blame my need to mother simultaneously but I know that’s malarkey. I’m maintaining my writing practice but not growing it.

In a way I feel good about it all. At least I’m not losing ground I think. That’s a win isn’t it? But in a world where we judge ourselves for the progress we’ve made, I am not proud of treading water. I like writing and love connecting with other people on the subjects I love talking about. But being bold and disciplined is tough. Retreating, snuggling in, and not risking seems like it’s easy. But it’s not feeling easy.

So I’m asking myself those questions again about what makes me happy? What is it I value and what would it take to achieve that value? And I am recommitting to that process. Not because I want you to like and approve of me. But because I want to be proud of me. I want to know that I am not caving in to my fear but making small efforts to make myself proud to be me on a daily basis.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

The point at which I noticed that I needed to be a good parent to myself, I had to trust me to have my back, and I needed to keep myself safe, was the moment I realized my mindfulness was shifting to a new place of self-accountability. A place where self-care really meant taking care of me and protecting myself from the onslaught of the regular anxiety I’d been subjecting myself to my entire life. My shift was in the ownership of my own actions and when I put the nice kind strong parent in charge instead of the mean judgemental withholding one, my life got easier and gentler. I was no longer victimizing me using other people. I was responsible for everything that was in my life, good and bad.

And as I considered recently what it is I’m able to give my readership, the concept of self-accountability came up. I am offering people a chance to see what self-accountability looks like in action. How oddly it struck me then when, in response to me saying that some other people think I’m a bunch of hooey, my therapist said, ”some people aren’t ready for self-accountability. Some will never be”.

Self-accountability means you take responsibility/ownership for your actions. You recognize that you can change your own life by this action and claim responsibility for what you’ve chosen. You can also use this power to re-parent yourself and build your esteem( see the first paragraph). It means you are good for your word to you as well as to others. And that isn’t as common as I’d like or you’d think.

I’ve explained several times to my son that most of the world points fingers at other people and says “He did it to me”. I told him it’s easier if he doesn’t do that but rather would take responsibility for whatever part he could. I think most people are finger pointers. I try hard to dodge that behavior and I think the majority of my audience are people who support self-accountability too. I also presume that there are other people who read my posts and think I’m some sort of freaky nut-job who obsessively talks about her feelings. While I’d agree with them, I’d offer that there’s so much more to life besides sports, religion, television, and fear. That to become a deeper society, we need to dig within ourselves first. And I’m a gal who leads by example. This is me being the change.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And so again, my October month-long marathon post-athon of posting everyday is coming to an abrupt end. As usual, I’m here to tell you again why I did it and what I got out of it. Because that’s how these wrap up things work. See the previous years’ 2015 here, 2014 here, and here is the intro to the first time in 2013.

Like many, I can get to telling myself lies about how I don’t have enough. Time is the biggest resource I can convince myself I’m lacking although it’s really fear of success I’m feeling. So this self-imposed torture/yearly practice of posting every day of October pretty much dispels that lie, short and sweet. I manage to post every loving day, keep my kids and my house fairly tidy, and do other stuff like creativity challenges and have a social life too.

There’s a Jewish parable, a tale I’ve spoken of before in last years wrap-up, where the man complains about having too much mayhem in his house. So his rabbi tells him to bring in the chickens. Then the goat. Then the cows. And finally, he tells the man to go ahead and move them all out. And then asks him how things are now. He says great. It’s all about creating the perspective. ( See the story here. )

I am amazed that I get away with this every year. That the amount of subjects and creativity keeps coming out of me endlessly seems miraculous. But then creativity flourishes within confines. So I have just about shown myself again how much of a super woman I am and how I can pull off anything I put my mind to.

So here’s to another month of Sundays gone by and a Happy Halloween to end my month-long gauntlet on. Let it be Spooktacular and Funny Fun Fun!!!

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a toddler, a tween, and my five year-old blog and I turned 50 this year. My hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

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